One of the best movie scenes is in “Billy Elliot” when the main character, Billy Elliot, is being questioned about a recent altercation with a fellow applicant during his visit to the Royal Ballet School in London where he wants to study.
With numerous strikes already against him (working class background, father who struggles with his son wanting to dance ballet, etc.), Billy is barely hanging on by a thread when the review board asks him to explain his behavior in the locker room.
Just when the audience believes all hope is lost for Billy, one of the panelists asks him, “What do you feel when you dance?”
It’s as if a tiny crack has just opened in a room that seemed sealed off for good.
“I dunno,” he says eventually. “I feel happy, I guess. Like I can fly. It feels like electricity is moving through me [sic] body.”
“Show us,” the panelist says.
And he does. He gets up and dances. The energy in the room shifts. Viewers get shivers down the backs of our necks.
Billy dances despite the judgment. Despite the prejudice. Despite the criticism that is as thick in the room as smoke cloaking the sky from coal burning factories in Billy’s home town.
He dances because he has nothing left to lose.
He dances because it feels like electricity.
That’s the answer right there. The spark. The juice.
When what you do feels like electricity, everything is possible.
Nothing else matters.
